To my brother...

To the brother I didn’t know very long...you were amazing and crazy and truly hilarious. Your wild spirit, though hard to tame, proved to be strong and beautiful and truly wild. Your resilience to whatever life threw your way was inspiring. You never backed down or let the fear of anything keep you back. Though you are no longer physically with us, your spirit and soul and art still live on in our hearts and on our skin. Everyday gets a little harder but a little easier too. It’s still a fresh wound and it’s taking a very long time to heal. It’s definitely not the easiest thing I’ve ever gone through. In fact, it’s hell. The news still replays over and over in my head like some bad broken record that I wish never got scratched in the first place. Your heart was beautiful. Your bear hugs and electric smile and bright eyes will always be missed but will forever shine on and be cherished. I love you and still wish nothing but the best for any part of you and those whose lives you impacted even by just saying hello.

To the brother I want to know...I’m sorry. I’m sorry it’s taken this long for you to know how much you mean to me. I’m also sorry that it had to come to this for us to actually know the other one. So I’ll introduce myself, formally, as the sister who wants to make sure that you never hurt from this alone. Even though it seemed we lived in the same realm but worlds apart, you were still a sort of inspiration. Without your courage or the courage of the one we now lack here with us, I would not have been able to get to where I am now. We fought silently through the same battles, just separately. Knowing now that we fought those and felt the same hurt and individually had to feel the ache of that which tore us to shreds, we both still rose from it. I love you so much and hope that we will never have to suffer these battles alone anymore. Know I am always here for you, no matter what happens now. Though our trio became a duo, we still carry our loved sibling with us always. I love you.

To the brothers I’ll always love...I love all three of you. I’m so proud of you all in your own ways. My heart longs to be able to hold you guys all close at the same time, but I know that can’t happen right now. You are all so strong, so bold, so courageous. The love in your hearts and depths of your souls is something I only hope to be able to have someday. I hope you all never forget that and never lose sight of what your dreams are. Don’t let anyone put you down for what you may say or look like or feel. Don’t anger because others may not see things how we do. Love with everything you have in your soul and body and being. You are incredible each in your own distinct way. You are my brother. You are what I love most dearly in this world. Though one of us has already gone to take over the role of watching the rest of us all down here, you all are guardians and warriors and creators and masterpieces.

To my brothers,
I love you so much more than words can ever say. You are truly such an enormous part of my heart.

He always said he hated how people always left, yet now in retrospect, he was the one who turned his heel and shut the door on his way out but left the window open to carry in the chilling draft of lonliness.

(ps-He always said he wanted to be like the people I always wrote about. Funny how his wish came true.)

I'm here picking up broken hearts and broken souls and broken friends and broken strangers in a broken world and all I get are cuts from the sharp edges.
I'm dripping sweat from bending over backwards to help the lesser and the broken and I'm left dripping blood from all those sharp edges.

11:11, a time on a clock
Some hope for luck, others for sleep
You hoped for love, which you found in me
Time passed on, many times over
We drew apart, as did the minutes between
Until tonight's 11:11, when I wished for you

Notes on your window
So subtly appear
As though they came from thin air

No rhyme, but reason
A familiar flick of the e's in everything
Glimpse of hope

A handwriting technique you know well
Smeared ink against the fibers
Calling out for one last message

They seem to procreate every few weeks
A simple one
Minimalistic hopes of something

Nothing more to lose
Just a note on your window
Signed by a smeared "O"

My God, he could never understand why she watched so many music documentaries, listened to so many eclectic songs, so many symphonies and just be flooded with emotions. He never got it. He never got her. He got bits and pieces of her, yet the rest was a mystery. She was his paradox. He'd sit and watch her get lost in a sonata, a Van Halen guitar solo, or simply a musician along Music Row. He never could understand how she did it. How, even though she was so different and foreign, that she could feel so much like home to him. So close to what he needed forever. She was his beautiful, mysterious, paradox.

I'm really bad at building relationships and friendships and -ships of all sorts and my ancestors probably helped build Titanic because of how many ships im unable to build and keep a float for more than a little while. I try, I do, but they always flood and sink.

I left my heart in the District of Columbia
It's where I last found love
It's the last place I left my heart

With someone special
With the city

I left my heart in the District of Columbia
It's the last I knew of love
The kind that warmed your soul

Kept you warm
Woke you up

I left my heart in the District of Columbia
It was a silly love
One that sincerely stole my attention

Left me speechless
Gave me hope

I left my heart in the District of Columbia
I pray I get it returns to its home
I pray I return to the place that stole my heart from me

I'm sorry, my dear, but the world changes
Things change within an eye blink
The things you once called safe have become estranged
Leaving you with nothing to do but think
I'm sorry, my dear, but life goes quickly
You can't waste it behind fears
You must move forward with purpose
You mustn't look back
I'm sorry, my dear, but you must understand
Not everything is good in the world
Not everything is bad in the world
Not everything stays
Not everything goes.

I want to get lost in the right directions.
Find my way among the stars.
Use my heart as a compass and my mind as a map to figure it out.
I want to feel the freedom when I breathe, feel a new ground underneath my feet.
And, if things go as they wish, maybe I'll end up happy amongst the stars themselves and shine with the intensity of a thousand stars.

And in that moment she could not tell what she loved more
The music or the man who played it
The notes of the song or the story of his life
Perhaps she loved both deeply
Perhaps the songs-of his life, her life, and the ones he played-intertwined in a way it moved her soul to a point of happiness

Late night calls either make you or break you
There are the ones that are so sweet, so intimate that you never want them to end and they leave you dizzy on happiness and contentment
The others break your heart, tear you to pieces, and leave you needing comfort, reconciliation, and a reason for hope
You never know which one you're going to get when you pick up that phone
Sometimes you may know and you're totally wrong
Sometimes you may know and you're  totally right

Kept your shirt but you took your love
Took my chance but you gave it to someone else
Handed you my hope but you squashed it barehanded

She was in love with the road and the music
It was her home
Underneath the lights, amidst the noise
Her soul was dark and free
She was a drifter, one stage and city to the next
He was in love with her
The way she could pour herself into an eighty five minute set
How she could move a moshing crowd to tears
She was his home
Her smiles, her lips, her messy hair
The way she'd kick her laces boots and watch her feet as he told her he loved her
She fell hard, he fell harder
They fell in love to the beat of a ragtag eighties grunge song and things just never changed

Why am I becoming like you?
I'm becoming who I said I'd never be
And low and behold, when I look into the mirror of my soul, it's not me I see any longer
No, it's a slightly different version of you in me
I feared for this day forever
This is not how I wished to end up by any means
I see you in me and it's terrifying and I loathe it

The rain drew her in
It doused her fears and put out the flame of false hope in her heart
It awakened her soul and lit a new flame of courage and rebellion in her
It washed away the sorrow
It kissed her face the way he never would again
The rain was the only kiss she needed now

I'm in love
No, not with a person
But with the autumn night sky

I'm in love
With the way the stars bend down
And seem to hug me

I'm in love
With the way the breeze dances by
And seems to kiss my cheek

I'm in love
With the vastness of night
And the loveliness that is autumn

I'm in love
No, not with a person
But with the autumn night sky

Do not fear the leap
The leap into the unknown

Not everything stays unknown
Not everything unknown is scary

Sometimes you have to make the leap alone
Sometimes it's into the darkness

You have to muster the courage to do it
Not everything stays dark forever

Do not fear what will happen after  the leap
Fear what will happen if you don't take the leap at all

We have that secret way of traipsing around each other
Dancing at the outskirts of each other's minds
Carefully caressing the others heart but trying not to let them notice
Very carefully, ever so subtly, insuring the other that the feeling is mutual

Blurry pictures, though hard to deceifer, tell more than the clearer copy.
Blurry pictures show that life, though chaotic, is truly beautiful.
Blurry pictures show the real and raw reality.

Someone asked me one day why I wrote so much.
I told them to be quiet because I was listening to what the pen said to the paper.
I was trying to hear their love story.
The one unspoken.

Pictures are lazy ways of creating memories
Pictures only capture mere milliseconds
Memories formed in your head are so much better
You can play them through like movies for later dates
Never having to worry if you'll ever lose a copy or ruin it
Absorb as many memories as you can and only use pictures to amplify them

She was the girl who was addicted to sad songs
She wasn't always sad, it was just how they comforted her
Wrapping around her body, engulfing her ears, and seeming so tantalizing to the soul
You see, sad songs aren't always downers
They're soothing
Reassuring
Promising
She wasn't addicted to sadness, just the music that those sad times gave life to in music

I want to find love in the coldest time of the year
One that will keep me warm on the coldest of days
One that will illuminate the darkest night of the season without fail
One that is inevitable
One that will last
I want to find love in the winter to fill the holes that summer and fall left in my heart to keep me warm and safe.

It's not just notes.
It's the pain in the low notes
And happiness in the high
It's the way people take their pain and sadness and sorrows and push them all out through the notes of a song
It's the anger in the sharps
It's the finally cadenza
It's not just notes
It's how you express them and make them you

Don't use the stairs unless you're willing to help build them.

Give me a reason to give you a chance
Because I'm so sick and tired of dancing this dance
The world has become grey just like your soul
And my heart, I fear, will surely explode
No more easy ways out
No more saving a shout
Give me a reason, one small reason, to give you a chance
Because I've finally given up on this ridiculous dance

You drive me crazy. Absolutely nuts.
It's rather scary, to be quite frank.
I'm not entirely sure I like it at all.
But you see, there is no other person upon the earth that I would rather go crazy with but you.

Amidst the chaos is beauty.
Amidst the pain is hope.
Amidst this life is redemption.
Amidst this rolling sea of life that tosses us all around, we still find a reason to take another breath.

Her music was "too aggressive" or "too loud". As soon as her pen graced the paper it was though her well of ideas ran dry. The same happened for her paintings too, an unfruitful harvest of lazily drying acrylics. She needed a new outlet.
She was going crazy in her mind, absolutely insane. Her dreams overwhelmed her nights so that she awoke and felt as though she hadn't slept. Her days seemed to zoom by as though stuck in a time vacuum turned on high. Her attitude and persona was as neutral as the light makeup that was on her face.
Her cup sputtered to the floor, spilling her tea everywhere. She cried out in aggravation. She was so done with being pushed around and ignored and shut down. She needed an outlet and she needed one now.

Post: 38 days

Her life had begun to clear a little. She found an outlet. Not your typical one either.
He was a character in himself with a whole other world in his eyes. He was different in the way he carried himself: confident but reserved. He knew who he was but still let people try to guess. Words didn't phase him one bit, except from the eloquent ones she spoke to him late at night after the rain had succumbed to their presence in the night air.
They worked. They were made for each other, even though an unexpected pairing. No one knew how or why or when but they just seemed to mesh.
They could both attest to their likenesses. As soon as her hand met his, that's when it was all over. She knew nothing else mattered any longer. She found happiness. For once in forever in her crazy and ******* up life she found happiness. She found love. She found herself.

Reach gently to those around you. You never know who is shattered and waiting to fall to the floor in splintered pieces.

If you're going to fall in love with me, please understand what I'm about to say. I'm falling apart. In the most literal sense and in a figure of speech. My health is diminishing and so is my happiness.
I never said I wouldn't love you back. I'd adore you. I'd never want to let you go. Just don't leave me, because I'm not sure I can take much more.